Love Garden
by a perfectly healthy clown
Summary: Peonies stand for honor. When they bloom, they will be pink. It's romantic in nature, ideal for weddings and table arrangements, with the lighter shades of the hue expressing regret over an embarrassment. Late at night, reading a book on botany and horticulture he found in his little Alexandrian home by candlelight, Negan felt nothing but embarrassment.


Rick says, "I'm tired of this," and so, in the morning, before he steps out the front door, he shaves the beard from his face.

"I didn't shave," Rick says, and touches the stubble along his cheeks with callused fingertips. "I _trimmed_ it."

Rick says he's tired of the white in his beard because seeing it makes his stomach hurt. He says he sees it so much it's starting to turn him off the color white completely.

And he stares at Negan as he mumbles, "Sorry," and Negan rolls his eyes and sinks his hands deeper into the bed of soil.

Negan says, "Come on, Rick, surely you aren't ashamed of growing old in a world like this." A worm clings to his thumb, and Negan lowers it to the dirt. He and Rick watch it disappear.

"It's not that." Rick's cane bumps into Negan's hip from where Negan crouches in front of a tomato patch. Rick taps it into Negan's hip again, Negan wobbling to stay upright. Fighting to stop himself from smiling, Rick says, "You know why."

"Hit me with that cane one more time, old man."

Rick does.

Negan looks up at Rick, eyes squinting against the sun.

Rick holds nothing back when he smiles now. "Your beard's better than mine." He admits this with no shame, as if he wasn't trying to dance around this confession seconds prior. Rick says it, and he smiles so brightly while he walks out of the garden. His limp's getting better, if a limp can get better.

There's no shame in Negan keeping his eyes on Rick's retreating form either. He claims it's to make sure Rick doesn't fall, that Rick stays safe.

But the angel sitting in the dirt next to him rubs her thumbs into the lamb's ears on Negan's right and scrunches her nose as she says, "Your eyes look different when you stare at my dad."

And Negan smears a drop of soil onto the tip of the angel's nose. "You think so, Judy?"

She only laughs.

* * *

Her forearms bear the weight of the picnic basket she always insists on carrying home. The contents change every day. Compost and trash are expected, but today, there's a harvest of tomatoes ready to serve their purpose in the Grimes' kitchen for this evening.

They encounter Carl on the front porch steps. Judith's cheerful "Hello!" and Negan's nonchalant head nod are customary, as is Carl's pointed smile at her and pointed glare at Negan. He's drinking lemonade, a notebook on his lap.

Negan says, "Working on that handwriting?"

Carl glares some more, and then he smiles. A bitter remark no doubt laced with profanity lies on the tip of his tongue, but he chews on it. Negan knows, though, and he draws two lines from his eyes to Carl's one eye. Carl's face is free of gauze, has been for years. He looks better, happier. His middle finger waves at Negan once Judith turns her head. Proud, Negan does the gesture right back.

When she bounds through the door, with a big grin on her face and a skip in her step, she greets Rick first and foremost. "Hi, Daddy!" she says, and holds up the basket for Rick to see inside.

He's at the table, one of Judith's coloring books open to a page of songbirds and sunshine. Half the table is his, all the crayons out of their boxes, the chair to his right scooted out and used in alleviating the pain in his leg. Negan can't look at the limb straight on, not without hearing the ferocious snap he brought out from the fracture thumping away in the deepest part of his eardrums. He stares at Rick leaning forward instead, peering into the basket to see the round, red fruits he—and Judith—tended to day after day. Judith liked watering the plants. Negan liked seeing her happy.

Rick slumps in his chair, a defeated sort of smirk on his face. He looks at Negan while doing this, complete with a sigh and a shrug of his shoulders. "Is that what we're having for supper?"

" _Supper_ ," Negan mocks, Rick rolling his eyes. "Every month, Rick, we have my famous spaghetti—you should be used to this by now." Judith leads Negan over to the counter, the basket of tomatoes too heavy for her to lift to place on the surface. Negan takes over here, Judith eager to sit on Rick's left and silently judge his dubious grasp on color theory.

"Maybe too used to it," Rick mumbles.

The pot Negan uses to boil water for the noodles already rests on the counter.

Outraged, Judith says, "Have you been breaking my crayons?"

Rick laughs. "I'm sorry. I don't know my own strength, I guess, sweetie."

No matter how many times he stands in this fully functioning kitchen, Negan will forever be amazed at the running water flowing from the sink. He lets the water run for a moment, gaze on Carl entering the house. They meet eyes from across the room, Carl not wasting a beat when it comes to dropping his empty glass of lemonade in the space Negan's tomatoes would have occupied. Carl doesn't even smile. He dares Negan to do something.

Negan shuts off the water, hip pressing against the counter, and says, "Hey, Rick, how do you feel about sunflowers?"

Carl slowly narrows his eye.

Judith covers her mouth.

"They're okay," Rick answers, peeling away the wrapper around a green crayon. He does the shrug again, head tilting to look up at the ceiling. "Why, did you plant some?"

Judith says, "Near the back, next to the fence. I helped."

Rick smiles at her. "That's a good place to put them."

Flipping on the sink again, Negan turns to Carl. Carl still doesn't smile. He furrows his brow, inspecting Negan some more. As if he can see through Negan, he turns to a blank page in his notebook. He writes three letters—"Mom".

Scrummaging up what little he knows from his days working with children, Negan uses his left hand to sign a shaky "Lucille" and his right to move Carl's glass and drop the tomatoes into a bowl. He sticks them under the stream of water, all the while whispering, "Well, fuck."

"I'll help you," Carl says, to everything.

Negan says, "Fuck off," but he's desperate, and when Rick tells him to watch his language, he almost feels like bursting into a hundred and one pieces.

Carl smiles now. "I'll boil the water."

* * *

Sunflowers mean adoration. Loyalty follows suit, as does haughtiness. Given the right circumstances, anybody can grow to love a sunflower. The world is dead and sucked dry from insurmountable sorrows. To have the means to plant as hobby and not just for necessity is cherishable. Negan chose to sprinkle sunflower seeds into the flowerbed at the back of the garden because he thought it would be safe.

Judith suggested roses. She said this without a smile, only a curtain of no-nonsense over her face. Negan reminded her these were supposed to be for Rick, and she responded with a put-off, "So? You can't give him roses?"

They settled on sunflowers because they're tall, and Judith said she wanted them to be as tall as her. Negan also planted a patch of peonies nearby, Judith remarking on how she thought her dad would like them, too.

"But don't tell him, okay?" she said, and shoved her index finger to Negan's mouth. Her eyes were ice, and her tone was threatening. "You can tell him about the sunflowers, but not the peonies."

Peonies stand for honor. When they bloom, they will be pink. It's romantic in nature, ideal for weddings and table arrangements, with the lighter shades of the hue expressing regret over an embarrassment. Late at night, reading a book on botany and horticulture he found in his little Alexandrian home by candlelight, Negan felt nothing but embarrassment.

As Negan sits across from Rick at the table, watching Rick finish the last of his spaghetti, he tries to imagine a floral arrangement set between them and promptly downs the last of his lemonade.

It's just the two of them at the table now, a common occurrence when the sun drops lower in the sky and Carl reads Judith to sleep. Rick stares at Negan, leg on that chair on his right, elbows pressed into the armrests, placid demeanor—business as usual. They sit there, across from each other, playing a game of look-away-first. Negan looks away first. He always does. Rick smiles. He always does.

"How are things going?" Rick asks Negan, his turn to watch Negan fiddle. Negan picks at his napkin. He folds it once, a corner to a corner.

"I'm doing okay," he says.

"Good." Rick nods. He nods again. "That's good."

Negan unfolds the napkin and flips it over. He folds it again, again. He creases. He looks at Rick. "What 'bout you?"

"I'm doing okay," parrots Rick, without meaning to do so. It comes out quickly. Negan sees Rick blink for a second too long. He sees Rick swallow and move his head ever so slightly to the left. "I mean that," he says. "I _am_ doing okay."

"Good," Negan says, and then nods. "I mean that, too."

Rick watches Negan fold. His mouth quirks, biting at the inside of his lip.

The silence is nothing but comfortable. It's ordinary, expected. Negan comes over every month to make spaghetti, and he and Rick fight the impulse to stare at each other until night falls around them.

With a creaking chair beneath him, Rick slowly bends his knee and curves his hand around his shin. Just under the kneecap, right where it hurts, Rick applies enough pressure for the pain to waver. Negan tries not to take an interest in this, for Rick's sake and his own, so he busies himself with his folding. He listens to Rick breathe. A pleasant sound, Negan leans forward to hear it better and to carefully place his folded napkin between them. Most definitely off center, the swan with dried spaghetti sauce for eyes perches on the stack of coloring books.

There's Disney books, superheroes, and animals galore. Negan found the bulk of them on a run. He was alone, no one wanting to be near him now and ever again. The dollar store looked empty, but he checked despite it. It was a goldmine for Rick's little girl—and apparently for Rick himself. Negan can only assume it must be relaxing for Rick, in some kind of fucked-up way. He doesn't judge, can't judge, could never judge the things a war hero does when the dust has settled and the quiet becomes too much.

Negan slumps in his chair, eyes on the swan. Rick's staring at it, too, an amused sort of look on his face. "That's pretty cool, Negan," he says, reaching forward to skim the tip of his fingertips along the makeshift bill.

"Do you want me to do the dishes tonight?"

"Nah, I'll make Carl do them." Rick stands, albeit slowly, and takes each of their plates. He stacks silverware and slides glasses into glasses. He leaves Negan's swan be.

"Are you sure 'bout that, Rick?" Negan doesn't move any. He wants to move, wants to do a lot of things, but Rick shakes his head and smiles at Negan, and Negan couldn't move even if he wanted to do so. "Lemme do something," Negan manages to spit out. "I come over, make a mess of your kitchen, and you never bitch about a damn thing."

Rick laughs at this. "You're mad because of that?"

Negan's shrug is defiant.

Rick laughs more, then grows serious after filling the sink. "I'm… I… I appreciate… Judith really thinks highly of you—Carl, too, but he'd never admit that." Hands touching the countertop, fingers splayed out to balance himself, Rick eases more and more weight onto his leg until he's standing upright with no trouble at all. He struggles to maintain eye contact, so he doesn't. He hangs his head and shakes it again, shaking it again, shaking it again. "Thank you, Negan," he says.

He raises his head now, and he stares at Negan. It's solemn and tired. Rick's hair is curling and graying, and his beard is about to put the white in Negan's beard to shame, no matter how much Rick tries to keep it trimmed and _young_. "Thank you," he repeats.

Negan needs to be serious. He points a finger at Rick. "Don't be ridiculous," he says, Rick already closing his eyes and faintly smiling, "thank _you_."

Rick's smile is so bright. "Get out of here," he tells Negan. "It's getting dark."

* * *

At first peek of the sun, Negan rises to walk the neighborhood. On days like this, when the plants don't require tending, Negan spends the morning walking the streets of Alexandria. He does this before anybody else wakes, to save anybody from seeing him. This routine is one that took him a while to get into once Rick released him from his jail cell. Rick wanted him to be a productive member of society, saying this with as much authority as he wielded when he was a sheriff before all of this; though, there was only so much authority he could assert when he trembled and gripped his cane with white knuckles.

Negan found solace in the garden. He didn't know why. He sat in the dirt, watched the sun inch higher in the sky, and didn't mind the strange glances he received. Deep down, he knew the glares were well deserved. He almost believed he deserved getting things thrown at him, too, until Rick, with his tot for a daughter on his hip, plopped down next to him. Nobody glared anymore. Nobody even threw a rotting vegetable at his head when he looked down at his hands.

The first time this happened, Rick told him, "You're an asshole, but you don't have to put up with their shit."

"You really think so, Rick?" Negan closed his eyes when Rick replied.

"I do. Now, get up. I'm not going to do this anymore."

"I should hope so," Negan quipped. "In the shape you're in, I wouldn't be falling on my ass anytime soon. You might not be able to get back up."

Rick wouldn't look at him. He grumbled, "Hold her," and passed Judith to Negan as he dug his cane into the dirt and pushed himself to his feet. The motion was fluid, but Rick grimaced throughout. Judith pulled at the hair on Negan's chin. She watched her dad pretend everything was okay.

Negan asked, "Where are you going? I'll walk with you, bring her home."

"No, I got her."

On his hip, Judith perched, now gently pulling at Rick's beard. Negan closed his eyes again. "Am I gonna have to pick you up next time you do that? Don't know if I'll be able to carry you, old man."

Rick's cane bumped into Negan's thigh. "Shut up."

But Rick came back the next day, and then the day after that. He even visited Negan when Negan began to develop as a functioning resident. Always with Judith on his hip, as she grew older, she would walk alongside Rick, and soon, she would run ahead of Rick, right towards Negan to skid her bare knees and hands along the soil to help Negan plant and water and tend. Rick would stand back, watch quietly, and eventually he trusted the mischievous pair enough to leave them alone.

Judith didn't see anything wrong with Negan. She didn't know why people strayed from him when he came close. One day, she passed Negan an elephant ear root and asked him, "Why do they hate you?"

Negan kept quiet. He didn't know what to tell her.

"I don't hate you," she said suddenly, and then added in a whisper, "My dad doesn't hate you either."

She was young. She didn't know any better.

Negan cried himself to sleep that night. He's doing that a lot now. He doesn't remember a time when he didn't shed a tear when his head hit the pillow. He'd like to think he's getting better, and then he wakes up to go on his early-morning walks through the quiet streets of Alexandria and realizes how he'll always be a piece of shit. No amount of spaghetti or cleaning dirt from under his nails will make anything okay. He can try, though. He tries.

The sun just barely on the horizon like this, if someone sees Negan walking, they won't notice the quiver in his chin or the part in his lips. He's a monster who ditched his leather skin for something softer, for something made of flannel and quiet promises left unspoken.

Something tugs on it, his vulnerability. Sharp, urgent, it brings Negan to a full stop. That something curls its fingers tighter around his shirt at an attempt for balance. The huff of breath is familiar, like a laugh and unlike a laugh. When Negan steps forward to provide more space, the fingers curl even tighter.

"Hey," Rick tells him. "Stop moving." Rick's laughing. Rick's laughing, and Negan fills with enough air to laugh a genuine laugh with him.

"I know the early bird catches the worm and all that, Rick, but last time I checked, I wasn't a worm, and you weren't a bird."

Rick whistles a birdsong and lets go of Negan's shirt.

Negan slowly spins, one foot after the other. Rick's standing there, still in what can only be a pair of pajamas, and staring at Negan like he can't believe his eyes. It must be because the sun's rising. It must be because Rick's sleepwalking. Rick doesn't have his cane. He stepped off his porch, grabbed Negan's shirt, and whistled in his ear.

"What do you want?"

Rick isn't wearing shoes.

"Follow me," Rick says. "Follow me." Rick must be sleepwalking. He must be delirious. Rick says, "I need you to do something for me."

Negan can't say no. He can't. He can't, he can't, he can't.

"Lead the way."

* * *

Still resting at the center of the Grimes' table, the wings now drooping at the sides, Negan's napkin swan is the subject of Carl's gaze. He's too awake for this hour, and once Rick is under the yellow glow of the single light in their kitchen, Negan knows Rick shouldn't be up at this hour either. Negan wonders how he looks under the light. He wonders if he himself should be awake at this hour.

Carl speaks first. "Should've known it'd be you when my dad scurried away from the window and bounded out of the house. I almost thought he was going to fall on his face he ran off the porch so fast."

The blinds are askew, bent slightly where fingers poked their way through to peer outside. Rick wasn't subtle. If Negan had turned his head instead of staring at the asphalt, he would have seen Rick watching him.

Rick says, "I didn't _scurry_." He's embarrassed, despite it all, crossing his arms over his chest and his head bowing to look down at his feet. Negan tries not to stare. He tries not to do much of anything as he stands there and waits for Rick or Carl to continue talking. Just in this house yesterday for dinner, Negan feels unwelcome. It's unnatural.

He's cold. He crosses his own arms over his chest and counts the stripes on his sleeves.

Carl says, "You totally scurried."

"Negan said he could help," Rick says, turning to Carl, "and I was… worried I was going to miss him."

"Oh, so he's going to help?" Carl sounds put off, annoyed almost, and maybe in disbelief. He shakes his head to further this assumption. Negan's about to ask Carl what exactly crawled inside his asshole to nest when he hears the hushed sobbing to their left. Muffled by the wooden door and by a pair of little hands, the cries are drawn out and tired. This has been going on for a while.

"What's wrong with her?" Negan frowns.

Carl takes over. "She won't let Dad or me touch her. She's scared it's going to hurt."

"Uh—"

Rick glances at Carl, eyes narrowed. "She's in the process of losing her first tooth," he tells Negan. "It was loose a few days ago, you know… wigglin'. She woke us up slamming the bathroom door and locking herself inside. I, I, I told her I wasn't mad at her. I don't know if she thought I'd be mad at her, but I told her anyway. It made me feel better. I don't know. Do you think you could… check on her? She likes you"—Carl rolls his eye from behind Rick—"so I thought she'd let you _help_." Rick rubs his face. "I dunno," he repeats, quiet.

With no hesitation, Negan responds, "I'll help," and Rick heads toward the back of the house, guiding Negan through the dark, only stepping where the sun squeezes its way through nearby windows. They approach the bathroom, Negan fiddling with the buttons on his sleeves. "So…" he mumbles. "Watching me, huh?"

"Shut up. I should ask why you walk by my house that much every morning. Sleep in. Be lazy. You're in retirement."

"How's your leg?" Negan asks.

Rick curls his toes. "I need to sit down." He grazes his knuckles along the bathroom door, the sniffles stopping abruptly, no doubt being replaced by hands covering eyes, hands wiping away the possible humiliation and predictable sorrow. "Honey," Rick says, "Negan's here now. Can you open the door?"

"Prove it," she retorts.

Sliding in next to Rick, his hand coming to rest on Rick's shoulder, Negan says, "Hey, darling. I'm here. Open up." With his hand on Rick's shoulder like this, Negan stands a little taller. He adds no pressure to this gesture. Rick is already in a rough spot. The hand to his shoulder is a poor staple, but a staple nonetheless.

Rick pulls his hand from the door, and both he and Negan watch Judith's small face peek from the crack she makes. Little eyes narrowed and cheeks a bright pink, she only inches the door open enough for Negan—and even then, once he gives Rick a parting squeeze and look, he has to twist sideways and remember not to breathe out as he passes through the gap.

As soon as he's in the bathroom, Judith shuts the door. Her fingers twist the lock, which Negan immediately twists back into an unlocked position. "We don't have to do that," he says, and hooks his arms under her armpits before she can make a move to lock the door again. Negan lifts her onto the sink counter, her legs swinging and her lightly sniffing. He wipes a stray tear from her cheek. "Your daddy's filled me in with all the details," he says, "but I want to hear what's going on from your mouth."

Instead of speaking, she opens that mouth of hers and directs Negan to look at her bottom row of teeth. The one smack dab in the center of her face is twisted around, perfectly backwards, and the way she's squirming up on the counter, Negan knows it must be uncomfortable. He doesn't see any blood.

"Can you poke it for me?" he asks. "Use the tip of your tongue."

It's barely hanging on, tilting forward and snapping back into place like a quick flick of a cigarette lighter.

Negan reaches around her to wash his hands. She watches him do this in the mirror, absently sniffing, ultimately calming down. With her lips pressed together, Negan can see she's still messing with the tooth. She doesn't appear scared anymore.

Another request, Negan goes, "Can you twist it back around for me?" He dries his hands with the towel hanging to their right and plucks a wad of toilet paper from the roll.

Judith opens her mouth once she does this. She closes it instinctively when Negan brings his hand to her lips. There's fright in her expression now. Negan shushes her, a tiny coo. "It's okay," he whispers, nodding, her slowly nodding with him. "I promise you, it's not going to hurt… but if it does—and it _might_ —it'll be over in a second. You won't even remember it this evening." Negan pushes her hair behind her ears. With kids, losing teeth should be exciting because losing teeth means a visit from the tooth fairy. Negan's about to tell Judith this, about to ask her if she wants to get something from the tooth fairy, but the situation is different. It's nothing like it was before. Money doesn't matter. Judith wouldn't be excited to wake up and find a dollar under her pillow. Negan needs to talk to Rick.

"Show me what a brave little girl you can be." Negan smiles, and Judith smiles, too.

Negan rearranges the toilet paper around his fingers, placing his hand on her shoulder to steady her. She is strong and defiant where Rick was weak and in need of support in the form of a chair and something neither he nor Negan can't quite put a finger on just yet. Judith sits proudly on the sink counter, her eyes on Negan's and never closing or even squinting when Negan delicately takes her loose tooth between forefinger and thumb and removes it from the gum after a slow back-and-forth wiggle.

Judith doesn't notice the tooth's gone until Negan's giving it to her. He flips the same sheets of toilet paper into a square and places it in her mouth, half of it hanging from her lips. "Bite," he says. "It'll stop the bleeding. Do you need help getting down?"

Shaking her head, she eases herself from the counter as Negan squirts more soap onto his palms and washes his hands again.

"See? That wasn't so bad."

She sits on the rug, blue and fuzzy.

Negan sits in front of her. "I'll tell you what, Judy. This shit? That's easy peasy. When I was… I don't fucking remember how old I was, but I had to get my wisdom teeth removed. Have you heard about wisdom teeth?"

Solemnly, she nods.

"I went through fucking hell and back during that. It sucked more because I was _unfortunately_ a heavy smoker during that time of my life, and you can't smoke when you have teeth removed. So, that _sucked ass_."

She lowers her head and looks down at her tooth.

Frowning, lightly pinching at the skin on his wrist, Negan says, "You don't smoke, though. You should be okay."

"Wulups," she mumbles.

"Excuse me?"

Judith leans in, and Negan does, as well. Their heads pressed together, Judith takes the toilet paper from her mouth, stained and the gum already on its way to healing. She repeats herself quietly, so as to prevent eavesdropping. They have no idea if Rick's still out there. He needed to sit down, but that doesn't necessarily equate to him leaving the vicinity of the hallway.

"Tulips," Judith says. "I think my dad will like tulips."

Negan stares at her. Slowly, Judith's innocent façade falls and is replaced with a wicked grin and slits for eyes from how hard she laughs.

"You conniving child," declares Negan, scooping her into his lap. "Was all this an act?" he accuses, and gives her a shake. "You had your daddy worried sick you were mad at him. All this just so you can get me alone to tell me to _plant some tulips_."

"I saw him coloring some tulips when I went to get something to drink last night!"

Blinking, Negan pauses. Judith takes her chance to scramble from Negan's lap and save herself from any further tickles. She stuffs the toilet paper back in her mouth. Negan frowns again. He frowns. "Was he just… sitting at the table and coloring by some Goddamn candlelight? Why wasn't he sleeping?"

Judith shrugs her shoulders. She looks at her tooth, raising it up to the window. The sunlight is dim against the old curtains. They need a dentist for Alexandria.

Negan pats Judith's knee. "You should take it easy for a day or two. I'll think about those tulips. Go show your daddy and Carl your tooth."

Luckily Rick wasn't staking out the hallway. Judith's feet stomp through the house. She's running. She stops in the kitchen, exclaiming, still with the makeshift gauze in between her central and lateral incisor, "Wook, wook, wook!"

More soap, more water, Negan isn't sure why he washes his hands for a third time. He smells of flowers.

In the kitchen, Rick and Carl are just as excited as Judith. The worry and annoyance disappeared, the little family reverts to a cheerful unit, one that should be on television shows and the silver screen. Picture perfect, Negan keeps to the doorway and doesn't intrude.

The celebration is short-lived, but not depressingly so. Rick tells Judith to put the tooth on her nightstand, not under her pillow as customary, and lets her know he'll find someplace safer to keep it. "A box, maybe," he says. "Carl can help."

Carl rolls his eye at that. "I'm going back to bed."

"Take your sister with you," Rick says.

As expected, they pass Negan—Judith smiling and flashing a thumbs up, Carl needing to turn his head completely around to glare at Negan. Everything is good-natured. Everything is pleasant for the moment.

And Rick, Negan realizes Rick is sitting at the table and didn't stand to embrace Judith's childhood stripping away one tooth at a time. He sat and continues to sit at the table, cane nearby and a coloring book opened up. Crayons are scattered all over. Carl's seat, where he sat and stared at the napkin swan, also has a coloring book open. Carl's coloring is sloppy. Rick's is refined, going outside the lines forbidden. Negan steps toward Rick. Rick pushes himself from the table. He titters, but controls his balance with a hand to the back of his chair. "Thank you," he says, and nods his head once. "I mean it."

"You don't have to say that." Negan stares at Rick's fingers curling around the wood of the chair's curved back. "I know you mean it. You don't have to tell me that part."

"I know. I _know_ … I need to say it." Rick closes his eyes.

"And I need to hear it," Negan adds, meaning it as an aside, as something Rick would question with a tilt of his head. And then, Negan would shake his head, and they'd share a smile, and that would be it.

But Rick doesn't question it with a tilt of his head. He raises his hand from the chair, allowing it to hover, and promptly drops it to his side, slow, careful. "I know," Rick says. "That's why I need to say it." This is careful, too. Rick shuffles closer to Negan, his hand raising again, his hand hovering again, and Rick places his hand on Negan's shoulder. "You look terrible," Rick says. They share a laugh now.

"You don't look so great yourself."

"Go home. Lie down. Get some rest. What do you do after you walk by my house every morning?"

Negan counters with a great grin. "What do you do after you watch me walk by your house every morning?"

Rick isn't shy. "I go back to sleep."

"Well, I don't."

"Sleep, Negan," Rick urges, his fingers curling more easily around fabric than furniture.

Negan touches Rick's arm. He rubs up Rick's forearm, to his wrist, and back down to his elbow. "Okay."

The tulips on the coloring page are yellow.

Back at home, still with the faint pressure of Rick's hand weighing him down in the softest manner possible, Negan sets his head on his pillow and doesn't cry himself to sleep.

* * *

It's a brand-new day with the sun hiding behind the clouds. Negan sits in the rocking chair on his front porch, glass of lemonade in hand and a whopper of a book over floriography stretched across his thighs. With a broken spine and several pages dog-eared, Negan assumes his little home was a residence for someone with a knack for nature. Negan tries to soak up all he can as he rocks and sips at his lemonade. He reads about tulips, about how they're perfect to express love—and the yellow color, what Negan would like to grow, used to be a symbol of hopeless love.

Negan thinks it foolish, and he flips to the next page with frustration. He can't deny the way his heart thump-thump-thumps in his chest at Rick's voice, at Rick's baby blues, at Rick's cane persistently becoming acquainted with his hip. That familiar nauseating feeling of barely floating has resonated with Negan more than he cares to admit to himself and to anyone who asks. Judith thinks it's a recent development. She's growing into her big brain and her intuition is as quick as a whip. She knows why Negan stares at Rick for far longer than needed, and Carl—that fucking kid knew all along and allowed Negan to pine in agonizing solitude.

"I know," Carl told him one evening, a set of metal bars separating Negan from freedom. "You're not that good at hiding it. At first, I thought you were just messing with him, that you're one of those homophobic guys who do the things you do to be an asshole… but you're not, are you?"

He tackled it one at a time. "I'm not denying I've got some internalized shit I need to work out—and I'm not denying I'm an asshole, but I'm, I… I'm not messing with him because of that."

Carl didn't make him say it. Carl only said, "I won't tell him. That's your punishment from me, until my dad decides to let you out. You might die in here."

"You think that's some kind of punishment?" Negan scoffed. "I've been dealing with this for far longer than you think, kid."

"I heard you come onto him."

"That wasn't—"

"'I don't even get a sad eye-contactless handjob?'" recited Carl, bored. He was bored with it all, and he left Negan there as he struggled to come up with an excuse. _It was a joke_ , he settled on, but Carl was already going up the stairs and didn't want to listen to Negan's lie.

The memory sends a painful shudder through Negan, one that makes him drop his lemonade and shove the book from his lap. Elbows on his knees and his hands going into his hair, Negan counts the shards of glass that threaten to cut his toes if he isn't careful. He doesn't plan on moving. He doesn't want to move. He thinks he might throw up from how much his heart leaps.

But he has to move. He hears Judith's feet running to his porch. Before she reaches the steps, Negan drops his hands and warns her about the glass. She isn't worried about that. She's worried about Negan and demands him to tell her if he's okay.

"I'm fine, darling," Negan says. It almost feels like the truth.

She moves right along. "I saw Daddy looking out the window this morning again, but you didn't show up because you were asleep, but I, uh, I accidentally told him about the peonies we were planting, and he didn't seem that excited about them, so I asked him what his favorite flowers were, but he wouldn't tell me, so I think we should plant the tulips just in case."

Negan stares at her. "He was looking out the window for me."

"Yeah. Okay, so, I was thinking we could do tulips, and if he doesn't like that, you need to get over your fear of roses because we're going to need to plant some roses."

Judith isn't by herself. Carl was walking with her, and he's now walking to the porch to see why Judith is shouting at Negan from the lawn instead of joining him on the porch. At the sight of the broken glass and the abandoned book, Carl frowns. It isn't due to annoyance or irritation. He sees the objects in front of him and frowns out of sympathy. Negan reads it from the look that eyeball gives him. Carl lowers himself to sit on the edge of the first porch step. He begins to pick up the glass, gently dropping each piece into the center of his palm. "You didn't have to throw a tantrum," he teases.

"You ever get so fucking embarrassed over something stupid you did in the past?"

Carl smiles faintly. "Oh, yeah."

Judith tries to join Carl in picking up the glass, but Carl stops her. "Stand over there. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Reluctantly, she obliges. She stands with a grimace and with her arms over her chest.

"So…" Carl nods at the book leaned against the porch rails. "Having trouble?"

"I don't want"—Negan covers his face with his hands—"to give him _roses_."

"I told you I was going to help you, and I will. You need to think about something other than flowers. Don't get me wrong, flowers would be a nice gesture, but my dad's not going to understand these complicated meanings to each of them. Roses are basic. Why don't you want to give him those?"

"Because that's undeniable. Because I need something to fall back on in case he fucking drops me on my ass."

All the glass in his palms, Carl slowly rolls around the shards. Negan drags his fingers down his cheeks, watching Carl. He knows he's going to sound pathetic. He does. "Fucking great, right? A guy like me is too scared of rejection."

Carl shakes his head. "It's okay to be scared." He raises his gaze, the expression on his face relieving to a degree. "Like I said, I'll help you. In the meantime, do what you always do. Be a friend to Judith. Dad loves that."

"Don't say 'love'," Negan whispers.

Carl rolls his eye. "Okay, fuck you." He's laughing, standing to duck inside Negan's house to toss the glass in the trash.

Judith seizes her moment to launch herself onto the porch and drag a matching rocking chair over to Negan's side from the opposite end of the porch. Before sitting, she gives Negan his book back. Negan quietly thanks her, and she replies with an equally quiet, "You're very welcome."

"Keep him in line, Judy," Carl says, out of the house and starting down the porch steps.

"I will!"

Judith smiles at Negan.

Carl shoots a goodbye to Negan in the form of the bird. Negan wouldn't want it any other way.

"What do you want to do today, sweetheart?" Negan asks, absently rubbing his fingers into the corner of the book's cover. It's tearing in two.

Judith claps her hands. "Daddy and I already checked on the plants, so we can do whatever we want!" She pulls her legs into the chair with her, resting her elbows on her knees. After a bit of shifting his weight, Negan mirrors her position. Judith glows. "Do you think you could teach me the alphabet with your hands? I think that's really cool."

Negan shows Judith his fist, his thumb pressed to the side of his index finger.

She copies this exactly.

Negan stretches out his fingers, four standing upright, and folds his thumb across his palm, as if he should be making a fist.

She does this, too.

Negan says, "I want to take your daddy on a date."

Judith says, "He's old. You can't do much with him."

Slowly, Negan turns his hand to the side and keeps his fingers together. He bends his fingers, curving, his thumb curving, a semi-circle. "It's okay. I'm old, too."

* * *

She's able to sign simple sentences by the time the sun disappears behind a thick curtain of clouds. As they walk down the porch steps and down the streets of Alexandria, she bumps into Negan. Her arm hits him absently. Her little fingers make shapes Negan hopes aren't forgotten as the years go on. She moves her lips along with her curling fingers, reciting, memorizing the letters. Negan can teach her this. Rick can teach her the rest.

"It looks like it's going to rain later," she says, squinting her eyes.

"Will your daddy let you play in the rain?" Negan asks her. He notes the clouds as something far more than a light sprinkle.

Bitter and stomping her feet, Judith retorts, "It doesn't matter. You're taking me home anyway."

Negan messes with her hair. "Well, _yeah_ , but what if I wasn't? Would he let you take off your shoes and skip around in some puddles?"

"He said I'd catch a cold if I stay out too long. Stupid, right?" Judith leaves Negan's side to jump up the stairs to her house. One step at a time, her feet smacking into each wooden plank is enough to bring Rick outside to greet them. As the front door opens, Negan says, "Very stupid," to which causes Judith to giggle.

Confused and understandingly so, Rick looks from Judith to Negan and asks, "What's stupid?"

"Don't worry about it," Judith says, and pulls on his hand. "I'm hungry."

"Carl's inside. Get him to whip you up something," Rick tells her, lifting his arm over Judith's head and Judith jumping to skim her fingers along the muscles of his forearm.

Maybe in another world, maybe if Rick wasn't so worn down, he'd be able to raise Judith off her feet and into the sky. Either way, Judith doesn't seem to mind. This is heaven for her, a place where she doesn't have to worry about what comes after. She's protected, safe, and there's no need for her to dirty her hands with anything other than potting soil.

"Can I go play in the rain later?" Judith smiles, a space in her teeth, and knows by the look on her father's face her request will always be fruitless.

"You'll get sick." Rick messes with her hair, like Negan did before him, and pushes her through the door. "Get some food, stay indoors, entertain your brother—I need to talk to Negan."

"Oh, we're going to gossip? Need something done around the house? If you wanted me to strut around your kitchen in just an apron, Rick, all you had to do was ask."

Stifling Judith's giggles with the screen door, even putting himself between the door and Negan, as if it'll prevent Judith from laughing at the thought of Negan tying on an apron and frequenting the Grimes' kitchen any longer, Rick doesn't bother to hide the pink accenting his cheeks. His mind goes places Negan wanted it to visit, and that just brings a big smile to Negan's face. Judith isn't a resident of the gutter. Negan loiters, a troll who grabs at ankles to join him.

Rick says, "Shut up, would you?"

Negan continues to smile.

Rick's eye twitches. He lowers his head, Negan having to keep his own laughter from becoming known by chewing on his tongue. Slowly, he breathes, and Rick, he breathes, too. "You're coming with me on a perimeter check," he says, not open for discussion. "Make sure you're prepared; it's going to rain."

And he follows Judith into the house.

"Fucking hell," Negan sighs. He can hear Rick holding nothing back when it comes to his laughter—like father, like daughter.

It wasn't that Negan didn't want to go outside the walls. He liked being out there more now than ever. Solitary freedom, no one wanted to be stuck with him whenever he said he was going out scavenging, and it wasn't like Negan was quiet about these prospects either. He announced this to the town many times. He was usually met with silence and an icy look or two. He grew used to that. He grew used to going out by himself and not knowing if he'll make it to Alexandria again.

Rick was always at the gates to greet him when he returned. Always with a smile he didn't deserve, always with the same "Glad to have you back" he didn't deserve, Rick stood with his cane and that tilt to his head, and he greeted Negan like an equal, like a _friend_.

Negan wasn't allowed to venture from the walls right away. He had to work up to it—privileges and all that, which made sense. But as soon as he was given permission to be alone, he ran. He didn't know why he ran, but he ran to that field where Rick ended it all and dug his hands into the dirt and the leaves and covered himself in the tears he shed here and after. He listened to the wind rattle those stained-glass ornaments, and it almost sounded like the songs Lucille used to sing to him. He felt around in those leaves and slid until he was flat on his stomach, long limbs stretched and aching, and he didn't move. The sun set, and he still didn't move.

No one came looking for him. He told himself they were considerate, that maybe they figured he needed alone time with some fresh air instead of the air he only got when someone opened the door that led to his cell room.

He knew they didn't really care. He knew they hoped he would show up dead with bite marks on his face and arms. For a moment, Negan hoped for that, too.

The sun rose, and Negan sat on his knees.

He felt around the grass as he pushed himself into standing. His fingers fumbled around something curved, something curved and with too many angles and possessing everything bad. Negan picked this up, the shard of glass, and squeezed. The edges were sharp and stained, dirty, so dirty, the whole thing dirty with blood. It hurt to hold, and it hurt more once he realized the blood was his.

Negan pressed the shard to his neck, where he remembered the scar was, and applied pressure. It wasn't enough. He didn't want it to be enough. He hated the way he couldn't talk, and when he did talk, he was so hoarse no one took him seriously. He was a laughing stock, a fucking fool who might as well have had bells on his boots. No, Negan kept the piece of glass to his throat just because he could. He could end it here all over again, on his own terms, without Rick's baby blue eyes fluttering.

The retired weapon went into Negan's pocket. He stood fully, stumbling as expected, and walked. He didn't run. He didn't need to run anymore.

And as always, Rick was at the gates, smiling and saying, "Glad to have you back."

Clean and kept in his nightstand drawer, the glass follows a pattern similar to the stained glass that hung overtop them when Rick begged for just ten seconds. Rick shot it out when he aimed for Negan's head with his gun, not knowing that item would become both the saver of life and bringer of death. Negan briefly wonders if he should drop the glass into his pocket again and ultimately decides against it.

He dons a windbreaker, something with a hood, and marvels at how far up the zipper travels. As resilient as his leather jacket can be, he's ashamed to admit he hasn't touched the thing since that Alexandrian doctor peeled it from his body in the clinic. Negan was in and out at that point, vaguely self-aware of his own vocal cords and how weird he must look to these people in a bed too small for him, but he didn't put up a fight. He was weak, reeking of blood, and he couldn't even crack a joke about how the handcuffs were exactly what rustled his jimmies.

Rick handed him his possessions upon release from his cell. His jacket, his clothing, and finally Lucille, Rick didn't make eye contact during this exchange. It was understandable. Negan thought he might cry after wrapping his fingers around Lucille's handle.

Rick said nothing, though his silence was a warning. Negan took it. He propped Lucille by his bed and didn't touch her unless needed. These days, he hasn't needed to do much of that. These days, he doesn't even succumb to the need of gazing at her when he lies down to close his eyes for the night. He used to stare at her, moonlight dancing off her barbed wire, and the sight of it made him calm. The touch of her, the weight of her in his hand or resting against his shoulder, that made him elated.

By the end of the first week of his freedom, he was able to stop himself from grabbing her when the sun went down. Sleeping with her—with a _fucking bat_ —wasn't doing him any favors. It didn't help matters then, and it wouldn't help them now.

It was a recovery process. He entered a period akin to withdrawal during his scheduled life sentence. He cried often. Despite how frequently Rick saw him in tears during these moments, Rick never snapped at him. Carl, on the other hand, smirked, but he never said a word.

Rick willingly returning Lucille to him began a relapse moment almost. Negan couldn't bear to part from her again. After learning to live without her for so long, he didn't want to go through that ever again. But because he managed to live without her for so long, after that first week, after he woke with deep, snagging scratches on his face and neck, he told himself no more and believed the separation would be easy.

He doesn't look at her anymore. It isn't enough, he's aware. He can't disconnect the name from the object. If he can be proud of anything associated with the bat, he can be proud of their relationship no longer being codependent. For a certainty, he knows this to be true; it's evident in the way his mind refuses to think of the bat as a weapon or worthy of violent or intimate touch. Instead, he gravitates to the second drawer of his nightstand, where a holster and a serrated monster for a knife lies in wait. This is clean, too, an object once a home to the sticky blood of a coward's guts and a rapist's throat. Heavy in his hand, weighed down with survivor's guilt, Negan attaches the holster to his belt. A delicate task, Negan makes sure the strap is secure here, and then lower, tying the pointed end to his thigh. Makeshift and a little shabby, this drawstring was applied later on, after Negan realized it was too much a hassle to move with the knife swinging around and knocking against his hip. This keeps it still, stiff, like a leg brace.

Negan anticipates little use for it this evening. A perimeter check isn't a long, drawn-out process. Going in circles, counting the trees in passing, Rick shouldn't be out there regardless, let alone be out there with Negan. There are far more ready and able individuals who would jump at this opportunity. Rick wants to be the one, though, no matter his bum leg and Negan being… Negan.

Fiddling with the zipper of his jacket, Negan goes through his house and wonders where he's supposed to meet Rick. The gate would be the obvious rendezvous, and Negan has that destination in mind when he opens his front door and sees Rick standing on the porch.

They're both equally surprised to see the other before them, more so Rick than Negan. This doesn't make sense, as Rick was the one to walk here to gather Negan, but Negan tries not to question it. He nods his head in greeting, shutting the door behind him, and says, "You sure you wanna wear that, Ricky? Looks like rain might soak right through that cloth."

Rick's wearing a jacket, cloth, like Negan mentioned, and a little threadbare at the elbows. The two strings that should be hanging from the hood are gone, but it hasn't stopped Rick from pulling the hood over his head in a preventive attempt to keep himself dry whenever it does start to rain. The jacket's gray hue is darker than the white that begins to take over Rick's beard again. He might need to trim the excess soon if he wants to convince Negan he isn't as old as he appears.

"Green looks good on you," Rick says in response, eyes drifting to Negan's legs. He spots the knife, nods once, and starts down the porch steps. Negan keeps close, a hand outstretched just in case Rick's cane forgets to do its job. Negan's struggling to come up with a retort to Rick's compliment. Rick giving him a compliment is rare, and even more so when it isn't paired with heavy sarcasm. The time for a reply passes anyway; they're walking through the gates and listening to thunder to forget how it sounds to be alone with each other.

Nothing looks different in the woods around Alexandria. The trees are still trees, and the dead ones are still just as dead. As natural as the progression of death, the monsters who managed to stagger their way without incident this long into the new world walk with stunted shuffles. Even Rick would be able to outrun them if needed. Decayed to the point of becoming unrecognizable with their teeth chipped or missing, they gnash at the air and lose the will to lift their arms to latch onto prey. The effort isn't necessary, and yet, Negan meets eyes with Rick to check. No words exchanged, Negan knows that the Alexandrian doctor, the man Carl narrowly saved, Siddiq, got into Rick's head. Siddiq's mother believed killing these creatures would release their souls so they could finally be at peace. Honoring the dead, after Rick saw the teeth marks that snagged Carl's shirt but not Carl's skin, that's all Rick wants to do now. He wants to be a good person. Negan wants to be a good person, too.

Tugging the knife from his holster, Negan approaches the dead man walking and easily holds the back of its neck as he sinks the blade in the center of the forehead. Watching it tumble to the ground, Negan thinks it crumbles, bones and tendons and mush and all. It's soft, squishy, and malleable.

One raises its head from the dirt at the commotion and unhinges its jaw in a growl. Just inches from Negan's right boot, it doesn't provide any other indication that it's going to move. Taking chances in a world like this, no matter how much time has passed, is stupid, so Negan grinds his foot into its skull. There's no resistance. Negan laughs and spins to look at Rick, just a pivot of his hips and his heel fermenting in the mess of brain and blood. "For your information, Rick," Negan says, "when I say I like being stepped on, this is _not_ what I'm talking about."

Rick's smile is quick and over before Negan can blink. "Keep walking," he says, like Negan is a prisoner again and Rick is his parole officer—maybe in another lifetime. Maybe in another lifetime, Negan would be dead with broken glass in his neck. Maybe in another lifetime, Rick and he would both be recovering from their respective battle wounds in the same hospital. Maybe in another lifetime, Rick and he would have been friends from the start.

"There's another one," Rick points out, gesturing with his cane. He pokes Negan in the back of his thigh with it, and then points again.

It's too far away. It won't bother them. A sniper on watch would be able to get it if it ventured too close, but Negan's stepping over twigs and leaves and mud puddles to grab the dead thing's neck and send his knife through its temple. It falls, and Negan wanders further from Rick, a monster with a missing arm in the distance and starting toward Negan. Negan smiles, a drop of rain washing the muck from the toe of his shoe, and waits for the creature to get closer, just to give it a false sense of hope. They live on hunger, their only sense at this new stage of life. Something happens to the wires in their brain to make them want to eat humans and animals alike. Negan wants to say it's love gone wrong.

He stabs this one in the eye. He howls. "Gave it a fucking lobotomy!"

And Rick, he's still standing where he was, a hand on his cane and the other hand on his hip. He's watching Negan, and Negan's saying, "Like what you see, Rick?"

"Behind you," Rick says, and Negan kills this next one up its chin.

Rick's still watching. Negan hasn't decided if he likes it just yet, and he can't decide because the rain begins to pick up, and Rick begins to close the space between them.

Yanking the hood over his head, Negan warns, "You better be careful. I told you I didn't know if I'd be able to carry you." He tacks on, "Old man," for good measure. He pretends not to see Rick's shaking head and smile as he ventures deeper into the woods, further along the perimeter, away from Rick.

If this were his first time with Rick outside the walls, Negan doesn't doubt Rick would think he's running to escape instead of the alternative. The alternative is… messy, and something Negan wouldn't expect of himself, especially not now, given what led him to this point in his life. He chooses to dwell on this little, particularly when Rick's laugh hits the trees and he can't form a coherent sentence without a laugh getting caught in his throat. Negan can only hear, "Negan, Negan, Negan," over and over, and that's a positively lovely sound to hear from Rick's lips with the comforting drone of the sprinkling rain.

Negan bounces over some of the forming puddles and stomps in others. The water covers his boots and splashes his knife clean. None of the dead are in sight. It's just him and Rick, Rick and him.

Rick's stopped trying to talk. He's the embodiment of laughter, bliss, and everything good in the world.

And Negan, he sheathes his knife and ducks behind a tree. The bark is rough against his back, only a little damp, and it doesn't hurt as bad as he thinks it would to bang his head against it. Dull and not meant to cause any serious harm, he tilts his head to the left and to the right and tries to remember how to breathe.

It's not that he's terribly out of shape. He's embarrassed and trying to exhale all of it out before Rick finds him and he's forced to fill up once again.

He knows this will take a while, seeing how Rick is in need of a cane and careful footwork. With the added rain and laughter, Rick faces more obstacles than ever to get to Negan's location. Negan peeks around the tree. He expects Rick to be farther than he actually is, so when Negan's almost nose to nose with Rick, he flinches. Rick doesn't make fun. He doesn't laugh either. He's smiling, lowering his head, and moving until he's in front of Negan. The ground is sturdy beneath them, mostly dry under the shade of a tree. They're safe.

Rick presses the end of his cane into the dirt, leverage to stand up a little taller to meet Negan's height. It doesn't take much; Negan slouches against the tree, his hands on his thighs, still trying to breathe. Rick stares at Negan, smiling, content, and presses the tip of his finger to Negan's nose. "You're it," he says.

Negan smacks away Rick's hand. " _You're_ it."

Rick's cane enters the equation, right at the side of Negan's knee. " _You're_ it."

Negan watches a raindrop roll down the bridge of Rick's nose. "Hit me again," he dares, deadpan and expecting exactly what's going to happen next. Rick is predictable, with that mischievous look to his face, and Negan has no complaints. When Rick follows through with Negan's dare, Negan grabs the cane, right where it's pressed to his thigh now, and takes it from Rick. He doesn't think he's rough, but Rick's reaction, that drops Negan's heart straight down to his stomach.

At Negan grabbing the cane, Rick loses his balance, and he curls his fingers around Negan's jacket, the lapels, and he pulls Negan forward, toward him, taking a step back, rocking back on his heels, falling back, backwards, and Negan sees fright in those baby blues as they both tumble to the ground and roll, roll, roll, _roll_.

If their destination was the bottom of a steep hill, Negan wouldn't mind that as much. The journey down, while long, wouldn't be met with any obstacles. It would be as smooth as a roll down a hill could be, and no one would be seriously hurt. That's why parents allow their kids to slide down them in the summer and winter, with a makeshift water slide and with a sled from the dollar store. This is seen as fun, as something to hold the kids over until they'd be able to visit an amusement park.

 _This_ should be seen as fun, if only their surroundings weren't patched together with odd inclines, random placements of trees, and debris and mud galore.

Instead of laughing their heads off, they cling closer than they've ever allowed themselves to touch, faces hidden in necks, eyes squeezed shut, and waiting for the next bump to be the last. Negan's shin throbs, and his back and shoulders are no doubt going to scream when he tries to untangle himself from Rick, but Negan doesn't allow himself to disengage any. As soon as he saw Rick start to fall, Negan lunged, arms around Rick's torso, and squeezed. He hoped Rick would stay dry, would stay put together. For the most part, Rick's still in one piece, apart from the obvious groans and curses of discomfort whenever they catch a tree with a heel of their foot or, in Negan's case, his shin over and over and over.

It seems hours pass before they finally skid to a stop, Negan's waterproof jacket sending them to a peaceful slide to a flat clearing with no trees. While the location is desirable, it's also suspicious. As Negan lies there on his side, collecting his breath and shifting his organs to their proper places, he notices waterlogged walkers on the horizon line. Scuffing their broken toenails along the grass and sinking half an inch down with each step into the mud, their stomachs bloat with recent meals and their past endeavors in nearby streams and creeks. They're slow, but they'll be close enough to handle soon. Negan tries to twist to take out his knife, but Rick, still on top of him, diagonal to Negan's vertical, launches himself to the knife first. Their hands meet, and the heat Negan expects to be there isn't. They struggle to be the one to draw out the weapon, scratching each other, glancing at each other from the corner of their eyes, jaws clenched, and teeth bared.

"There a fucking gun in your pocket, Rick, or are you just pleased to see me?"

Rick places his forearm over Negan's throat. He says nothing, just applies enough pressure to have Negan clawing at his arm instead of the knife. Rick takes it and stands, and Negan catches his breath again and marvels at Rick limping his way over to the mini horde and taking them out one by one. The blade enters their foreheads every time. If one of them gets too close, Rick shows no fear when he shoves his palm into their chests. Rick is powerful. Negan understands why Rick stood back to watch him take out the monsters. It's good to watch. It's entertaining to watch. It's all of that and _more_.

Negan struggles to push himself into sitting. He gathers the sleeves of his jacket into his palms to prevent him from actually touching the dirt underneath his body, but these attempts prove futile. Pain courses through him, namely his leg. The rain coming down makes it difficult to see if he's damaged beyond a few bruises. His shin feels odd, though, like it's bleeding, but he zips his mouth shut and returns to lying on his back. If he tilts his head to the side, toward Rick, the rain is no more than a reminder that they'll probably get colds from staying out here too long. And that's ironic. That erupts Negan into laughter—laughter Rick picks up on as soon as he's finished taking down the walkers.

"Shut up," Rick says, because whatever made Negan laugh, he doesn't want to know. His shoulders heave with labored breathing. Rattling in his chest, Rick sounds indistinguishable from the dead, and then Rick clears his throat and stands over Negan, and Negan looks up at him and doesn't think that anymore. He doesn't think of anything anymore. A short-circuited brain rests in his noggin.

Rick toes at his arm. "Can you stand?" Before Negan can provide an answer, Rick lowers himself to the ground, to his knees, and leans over Negan to replace the knife into the holster. Negan moves little, but he still moves. He needs to stand. He can't be limping around Alexandria, too.

"I dropped your cane somewhere," Negan says.

"Don't worry about that." Rick smiles. "Okay? Are you okay?"

"My fucking leg…"

Rick laughs. It's whole-hearted and easy-going. "Oh, no—your _leg_. We can't have _your leg_ injured." Rick presses his hands to Negan's chest now and gives him a shove, like he's one of the dead coming in for the kill. Negan tries to aim a swing at Rick's arm, getting his chest. Groaning, leaning in close to Negan again, Rick whispers, "Ow. You got me."

Negan shifts his weight, onto his side, Rick watching him, Rick going, "You got me. You got me." Falling now, falling to lie on his back as Negan becomes the one to lean over to inspect, Rick murmurs, "I don't have a gun in my pocket."

It's fucking feverish when Negan kisses Rick. He does it with an open mouth and teeth ready to meet teeth and tongue ready to meet tongue. Rick finds the lapels of his coat, holding on to Negan as if they're going to tumble through the mud again, and he kisses Negan back, open-mouthed and air rushing through his nostrils and trembling lightly. Gross and heavy and churning Negan's stomach, he thought the fever that soaked him down to his bone marrow would maintain a permanent residence while their tongues slid along the corners of mouths, but it leaves as swiftly as it arrives. Negan chases it. He has to chase it. He tries to find it in the dip behind Rick's ear, in the crook of Rick's neck, in the valley of Rick's Adam's apple. It's worthless. Negan's teeth finds only flesh and rainwater, and when he kisses Rick's mouth, he tastes guilt and more guilt, and all he wants to do is cry.

Rick's hands roam up Negan's back, over Negan's shoulders, and they rub and rub in a quick, absent massage. Rick's looking up, eyes wide, lips red and parted. Negan can't bear to stare at him. He's shaking with Rick now, blinking too much. They're both blinking too much.

"Lower," Rick whispers, not a command, but also not a suggestion. Rick doesn't know. Negan doesn't know either, and yet he goes lower. He goes lower and touches Rick's chest, Rick's waist, Rick's hips, and Rick touches the top of Negan's head and pulls his hood further down. Rick can't look. Negan can't look. Negan kisses Rick's stomach. Rick sucks in a breath, anticipation hard hitting. He lets go of Negan's hood, Negan raising his head to watch him, Negan's eyes as wide as Rick's were, and Rick, he undoes his belt, undoes the button, the zipper, and Negan can't breathe. He can't breathe. He touches Rick's thighs, and Rick fishes out his cock and strokes himself. It's raining on Rick's cock, and Negan doesn't even taste it. He takes it inside, all the way to the back of his throat. He doesn't gag. He just… he slowly pops his lips off the head of Rick's cock and stares. He stares at it, and he stares at Rick, and Rick's not looking at him again. He can't. He's closing his eyes.

Negan tries again. He presses his knees into the space between Rick's knees and drapes his arm over Rick's stomach. His hood low on his face, Negan needs this protection, this security, when he goes in to lick at the underside of Rick's cock. The fever isn't here either. Everything is all wrong. Negan eases Rick into his mouth and swallows, and it's all wrong, and Negan pushes himself up, sitting on his knees with his hands on his thighs, and he doesn't look at Rick either. He closes his eyes. He closes his eyes and licks his lips and listens to the rain and Rick doing up his zipper.

"Negan," Rick tries, but Negan's shaking his head and standing and realizing just how much that tumble fucked up his shin. He can't add any pressure, has to limp—oh, fuck, he has to limp.

"Negan, you're bleeding."

It's like Negan didn't have his dick down his throat a moment ago. Rick's grabbing Negan's arm, yanking him back, too rough and not rough enough, and says, "Lemme help you." At Negan pulling away, Rick pulls him right back, and Negan smacks Rick's hands, Rick's arms, and Rick pushes Negan, sends him right back down to the mud. Negan tugs Rick back down with him.

Touching Rick hurts. Negan wonders if it hurts Rick, if Rick's senses overwhelmed him, too. Negan whispers, "Rick," right under his breath. Rick hears. Rick listens to Negan's whispered curses as he pulls Negan into his chest. If Negan speaks into the front of Rick's jacket, if Negan continues to unzip Rick's jacket and swear into Rick's shirt, maybe things will begin to make sense.

A millennium passes before Negan stands, before Rick stands. They don't look at each other. They limp back the way they came.

Negan finds Rick's cane next to an uprooted tree trunk. Again, they don't look at each other.

Rick says, "Thanks," and Negan says, "You're welcome."

And they limp back the way they came.

Going through the Alexandria gates aches. Negan stares at Rick's retreating figure, feeling empty inside and still shaking. By this time, the rain comes in waves. It's dry for the duration of Negan's walk home, immediately picking up when Negan gets inside and shuts the door behind him. Fitting, almost, since he collapses to the floor and sobs into the hardwood.

He sheds his clothing there, boots, socks, pants, his jacket, and crawls to the bathroom. Blood gets everywhere, but so do his tears, so he couldn't fucking care less.

And tonight, he cries himself to sleep.

* * *

Negan dreams about the garden being set on fire and Rick losing his hand. They aren't correlated in any way. They aren't meant to share a connection in Negan's head, too ravenous as it runs in circles.

Rick's red, red eyes are contagious. He's reaching forward with that stump, pointing at Negan. Right where Rick's right hand should be is blood, blood, and more blood. It runs down in waves. It scares Negan. It smells. It burrows deep in his nostrils, snug against his sinuses until he's forced to sneeze out blood, blood, and even more blood. This cycle brings an ache in his forehead, one that lingers when he opens his eyes and sees the sun shine across his thighs. There's nothing more he wants to do now than roll over and sleep the day away, but he doesn't. He knows it's morning, and his body knows it's morning, and so, he rises.

Everything hurts.

After a shower, dressing, and palming a bowl of plums from the kitchen counter, Negan plants himself on his front porch. Settling in a rocking chair, sitting criss-cross applesauce, Negan balances the bowl in his lap and scoots around plum after plum. Nothing too aggressive, Negan only shows his continued frustration at himself and the whole world by lightly digging his nails into a plum's skin. It's not the skin he wants to pick at and scratch, but it'll have to do.

It even hurts to chew.

"Hey."

Negan can't believe it's this easy to look at Rick in his front yard, so he forces his attention onto the porch railing before him. Raindrops litter the surface, dripping leftovers from the gutter above. The sky is fuzzy, clouds aplenty and turning the scenery a muted gray. Negan's eyes drift to these clouds, anything to not stare at Rick as he mumbles a greeting.

Rick's in a blue button-down. His hair is wet at the roots. His cane is nowhere to be found, but when he takes the handful of steps to Negan's porch, his feet cooperate, and his leg doesn't snag. It's stunted, sure; although, it isn't as prominent as it could be. Negan feels sick at his heart fluttering in his chest. He watches Rick climb the stairs, a hand on the railing, and eases into the rocking chair next to Negan. Still here from where Judith dragged it over just yesterday, Rick now stakes his claim. He even works off his boots and pulls his socked feet into the seat with him. Rick plans to be here for a while, and Negan can't exactly pinpoint his feelings on this.

He eyes Rick, turning a plum around in his hands, and says, "How's Judith?" He gestures to his mouth with two fingers, curling them, as he moves the fruit to his teeth to bite.

Scooting until his back is straight and against the rocking chair, Rick nods his head. He says, "She's okay. The adult tooth's already coming in."

"Doesn't hurt?"

"It hurts a little, she told me this morning, but she said she'll be fine."

"Do you believe her?" Negan asks this with a raise of his eyebrows and flicking the pit of his plum into the bowl. Rick watches him. Rick shakes his head now, just turns his gaze to the sky, and closes his eyes.

Negan bites into another plum, speaking with his mouth full. "Please tell me you had breakfast."

At Rick's open hand going under his nose, a tut in his voice, and his tongue between his teeth, Negan passes Rick a plum. A little on the smaller side, Rick turns the piece of fruit around in his hand, quietly admitting, "I've never had one of these before."

"Don't eat the pit. It's poisonous."

Rick runs his thumb over the plum. Quietly again, he says, "I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't—"

Shaking his head and shutting his eyes, Negan points and goes, " _Rick_ —"

"—have taken advantage of you." Rick's thumb sinks into the plum.

Those words send the coldest shiver down Negan's spine. He stares at Rick again, studying him and noting the pale skin, the red rims around his eyes, and even the puncture marks in his lips from either the constant nervous biting or the fumbling mess from the day before. Negan will readily admit he jumped the shark, and Rick will say the same for himself and for Negan. But Negan… Negan wouldn't go as far as to say Rick took advantage of him. Negan pounced first. Negan is at fault. And he's about to tell Rick that, and then he remembers what came after, how Rick told him, "Lower," and how everything went south from there.

Rick sits next to Negan, feeling the plum with both hands now, red eyes turning redder, and thinking he coerced Negan. He must have pressured Negan. He must have been a right monster. He's wrong. Rick's wrong.

Negan reaches across the arms of their chairs to take Rick's wrist.

Rick flinches, shuts his eyes.

Negan says, "Rick, I need you to understand you didn't do anything I didn't fucking want."

With the hand not currently being tethered to his thigh by Negan's palm, Rick runs it under his nose, runs the heel under an eye. He drops it down to his lap, defeated, lost, looking over at Negan. "I thought I… I thought I pressured you. I thought…" He never finishes, just shakes his head and returns to gripping the plum with dull fingernails.

"Some assholes might say I got a taste of my own medicine, but… Rick"—Negan curls his fingers tighter, squeezing Rick's wrist—"I wanted it. I wanted it so damn bad I forgot about the location, the fucking… the fucking circumstances, and how fucking out of _practice_ I am."

Rick presses his lips together.

Negan narrows his eyes. "Go ahead, old man. Crack that joke."

Instead, Rick takes a bite from his plum. He chews quietly to himself, no facial expressions to speak of. Negan removes his hand from Rick's wrist, but Rick takes it right back and interlocks their fingers. One hand in Negan's and the other holding the plum to his mouth, Rick slowly stretches out a leg to begin rocking himself with the lightest press of the tips of his toes. "I'm out of practice, too," Rick mumbles, and shrugs a shoulder. "So, the pits are poisonous?"

His breath caught in his chest, Negan only offers a single nod as he wiggles his fingers against the back of Rick's hand. He clears his throat. He clears his throat again. " _Yeah_. Uh, like… our bodies convert it into cyanide. It obviously can't do shit if you eat one. It has to be a lot."

Rick stares at the pit stuck in the fruit, teeth marks dangerously close. "Is your leg badly hurt?"

"I might need to steal your fucking cane," Negan comments.

Smiling, Rick lifts their hands and kisses Negan's knuckles. "Who's the old man now?"

Negan's stomach hurts. He leans forward to set the bowl of plums on the porch railing after Rick drops his scrapings inside. They turn to face each other, uncomfortable in their wooden chairs, but not expressing any discomfort. Negan stares at Rick, and Rick stares at Negan, and slowly, so slowly, Rick places his hand to the side of Negan's neck. He keeps it there, eyes half-lidded and that smile still visible.

With his own free hand, Negan slides his fingers into the curls at the nape of Rick's neck and pulls him in until their noses bump and their lips slide together. It's stupid. It's like puzzle pieces, snug and happy to be finally connected. There's no rush. Negan listens to the rain begin again, and he listens to Rick carefully breathe. He listens to Rick scoot closer and go in for another kiss. Just a peck, an extended peck, closed lips kissing closed lips, guilt doesn't line Rick's mouth, and the fever that had quickly evaporated from Negan's skin lies dormant now. The flame is quiet. Rick prods at it. He looks at Negan through his eyelashes, and Negan rolls his eyes and kisses Rick again.

"What happened?" Rick asks him, moving lips against a devilish grin.

"I was desperate."

Rick raises an eyebrow. "And now?"

"Oh, I'm still desperate."

Rick shakes his head. Rick turns around in his chair, sitting proper. He stares at his hands. He stares at the bowl of plums. "I think… I think I need to think."

The rain picks up.

Negan lost count of the days, the years. "That's okay."

Rick says, "No, it isn't. I don't know why I said that. Negan, I—you—"

"Whatever you say, Rick, it's going to break my fucking heart."

"I want to eat you out."

Negan blinks. He opens his mouth. He closes it.

Rick's smiling.

Negan narrows his eyes. "Fuck you, Rick."

"I'd prefer if it were the other way around, but sure— _yeah_ —you can fuck me. You can do anything you want." Rick picks at his bottom lip, furrowing his brow. "I mean, as long as it isn't anything _gross_ , you know…"

"Name something gross."

"Feet," Rick says without skipping a beat.

Choking back an exaggerated sob, Negan clutches his chest. "My heart, it's breaking—"

"Negan—"

" _It hurts_."

Rick kisses Negan's shoulder. "I'm not walking home in the rain."

A wiggle in his brow and a big-tooth grin, Negan takes Rick's hand and squeezes as he stands, as he helps Rick to his feet. "I'll take you someplace equally wet," Negan whispers, all the while ignoring Rick's rolling eyes. Rick's smiling throughout it, tugging Negan, like he knows the way, like he's confident and eager and on top of the world. He doesn't even limp. He walks backwards, eyes on Negan, and Negan has his eyes on Rick. He's confident, too, but not like Rick. Negan is slow, careful—there's no rush. He has lost count of the days, the years.

"Floor's stained," Rick points out, head tilted to the side.

"It's my blood," Negan says.

They keep the bedroom door open, their hands too preoccupied with fabric and the most efficient way to remove it. Negan's working on the buttons of Rick's shirt, and Rick's trying to undo the drawstrings on Negan's sweatpants. Rick fumbles because he was expecting two belts. He fumbles because once he figures out the drawstrings, he finds Negan is naked. Somehow, that scares him. Somehow, that makes Rick's breath catch, and Negan takes over the best he can in a situation like this. He's still a little nervous, his anxiety dancing in his fingertips, but he finds relaxation easy in his nose pressing into the crook of Rick's neck.

"On the bed," he whispers, feeling Rick's hand slip down the front of his pants. It's the opposite of uncomfortable. He jumps, flinching a natural response, but Negan doesn't notice the calluses along Rick's fingertips. His trigger finger and beyond, Rick keeps a hand to the back of Negan's head to hold him steady, to keep their eyes trained on each other as Rick curls those fingers of his and makes Negan's breath catch now.

"You think you're going to boss me around?" Rick uses his thumb, small circles, agonizingly slow, around the underside of Negan's cock. Negan's twitching, bending at the knees, and digging his teeth into the inside of his cheek, and Rick's forcing him to keep upright, to keep eye contact. "Did you forget who you're talking to?" Rick's voice is raspy, his tone eager, and Negan hates himself for how much it makes him want to drop to the floor and _try again_.

But Rick's in control. Rick has a firm grip in Negan's hair. Rick kisses him, and it's a contradiction when compared to the hostility. Negan is lightheaded. Negan says, "No, sir," and lets Rick press both hands to his chest and shove him onto the bed.

"Good," Rick says.

They can't be hard. They can't be mean. Negan lies on his back and watches Rick crawl closer, lean in, and Rick… Rick cradles Negan's face as he kisses Negan. This is slow, too, but Rick isn't doing this to give Negan a harsh case of whiplash. Negan feels Rick's lips tremble. He pulls Rick in, his own hands on Rick's neck, and he's gentle. He knows he doesn't need to bite to get Rick's attention. He doesn't need to claw at Rick or pull his hair to get his rocks off. They're allowed to be tender. They're allowed to take their time. They've done enough waiting, but this is kind. They need this.

Negan needs Rick.

Careful, Rick sticks his fingers into the waistband of Negan's sweats. He moves his fingers just the slightest bit, a nervous tick, as he delivers a peck to Negan's cheek.

Scrunching up his nose, Negan tilts his head and gives Rick a kiss right back. "How do you want me?" He lifts his hips to help Rick and lifts them again for Rick to stick a pillow beneath him. Rick does this with a glance toward Lucille propped against the wall. Negan worries the bat might serve as a barrier between their activities, but Rick isn't too concerned. He's scooting down the bed, kissing Negan's stomach and hipbones, and biting Negan's thighs. "Bloody and bruised, right?" Negan smiles. "That's how you want me?"

Rick runs his hands down Negan's legs, head leaning on Negan's knee. Akin to feathers along his skin, Rick avoids the wounds along Negan's shin. His lips move, yet no words surface. Negan thinks Rick might be counting the abrasions. He curls his toes. Rick grabs his foot, squeezing, interlocking fingers with toes. "Would you be surprised if I told you I wanted you as happy and as healthy as possible?"

Fingers leaving the webbing between Negan's toes, Rick runs his fingers up and down Negan's shin. He touches the wounds now. Delicately, Rick applies little pressure to the new scabs, his lips giving each scratch and scrape and tear a short kiss. Rick cards his fingers through Negan's leg hair. Goosebumps occupy Negan's arms. He hastily rubs them, goes, "Years ago, yeah," and swallows roughly.

"Years ago," Rick repeats, thoughtful. He kisses the inside of Negan's thigh. His lips linger. He doesn't raise his head. "Not now," he reassures Negan, his breath tickling, his breath warm. Negan slides his feet along the bed sheets, bending his knees toward the ceiling. The sheets are soft and exposed from Negan not making the bed when he woke. He didn't want to do anything this morning. He managed to shower and eat and socialize—and he can hardly believe he's where he is now. It's the fodder of his dreams. Rick, kissing up his thighs and licking a long stripe up his erection, that's something Negan's thought about excessively and never even considered it to be a reality. He won't take this for granted. Rick isn't either.

With Negan's cock down his throat, Rick has his eyes closed and his cheeks hollowed, and Negan has to close his eyes, too. They don't stay closed for long. Chomping down on his bottom lip, fingers sinking into the hair at the top of Rick's head, Negan does all he can to fight the urge to buck his hips up into Rick's mouth and choke him. It's a difficult task—and one Rick seemingly encourages by flicking his eyes up to Negan and fucking _winking_.

"Shit," Negan hisses. "Fuck, Rick. _Rick_."

No words, just a smile on his wet lips, Rick crawls back up the bed. The bed frame creaks. The mattress groans. Negan watches Rick. He breathes. It feels good to breathe.

Rick settles on his stomach, next to Negan, and places his hand on Negan's chest. He kisses Negan. A soft peck, two soft pecks, Negan winds his arms around Rick's neck and turns them onto their sides. Rick drapes his arm over Negan's torso, casual, the furthest thing from teasing as he fans his fingers along the back of Negan's t-shirt. Easy-going, they kiss to the sound of rain. It doesn't disturb them. It's too far-off, not even occupying their same personal bubble.

Negan thumbs away the rest of the buttons on Rick's shirt. He pushes himself up on an elbow when Rick scoots away to sit on his own. Rick sheds the blue shirt and discards it to the floor. Without pausing to ask if Negan would like to do the honors, Rick shoves off the rest of his clothing and pushes it to the floor, as well. He doesn't look at Negan as he does this. He sits there, knees slightly bent, forearms resting on them, and his head hanging low. He sits there, and he sits there, and he peeks over his shoulder to look at Negan, and this isn't a tease either. Negan looks at Rick, slowly sitting, too, and pulls his shirt over his head. It's the last piece of clothing between the pair of them, and Negan bunches it into a ball and tosses it onto the floor with the rest. They don't talk. Rick stares at Negan's tattoos, and Negan stares at Rick's old bullet wounds.

They both have been knocked bloody and bruised from their venture yesterday.

Smiling at this prospect, Negan grips Rick's arm, at the crook of his elbow, and slowly rubs it with the pad of his thumb. When their lips meet this time, Rick cups the side of Negan's face and lowers them onto their sides again. It's not as smooth as it might have been if they were younger and not currently harboring the aches from rolling down a hill and through mud, but it makes them erupt into laughter all the same. Rick's laughing the hardest, trying to shift it into something productive by moving down Negan's body and returning that pillow beneath Negan's hips.

And Negan, Negan grabs his cock by the base and angles his hips. Rick's kissing up his thigh when he bounces his dick against Rick's forehead. Again, they laugh, and to accompany his laughter, Rick stares at Negan as if he's sprouted another set of ears. "Do something," Negan says, and prepares for the reintroduction of Rick's hot mouth. Rick doesn't do that. Of course, he doesn't. No, Rick grabs the backs of Negan's thighs, eases them to Negan's chest, and spits on Negan's perineum. Gasping, hips jerking away, Negan mumbles a curse, and then repeats himself at a higher decibel at Rick's tongue passing over his hole. He's twitching. Rick's trying to keep him still. Rick's pressing his tongue inside Negan. Rick's smiling.

Negan says, "Shit, Rick."

Negan says, "Fuck, Rick."

Negan says, " _Rick_."

Negan says, "Rick, really, unless you love to hear me bitch and complain over being sore, I gotta fucking stop bending like this."

Rick stops, then, he does, and he's back to crawling. This time, he hovers above Negan, a forearm on each side of Negan's head. He hovers above Negan and stares, smiles, just stares and smiles.

"Stop fucking looking at me." Negan places both hands over Rick's eyes.

"You can be on your stomach, then," Rick mumbles, Negan dragging his hands down Rick's face, "when I fuck you."

Now, Negan joins Rick in staring and, eventually, smiling. "Might take you a while to get me all lubed up and ready for your fucking dick," Negan says. He runs his fingers through Rick's curls. His fingertips press into Rick's roots, a slow massage. "You okay with that, Rick?"

"As long as you're okay with needing to do all the work after you're ready. I haven't been known for having high stamina these days."

Negan pulls Rick down for a kiss. "In the nightstand," he tells Rick, against those plush lips, and he tells Rick, "I fucking got some stuff."

That kind of stuff, Negan knows anybody who finds condoms and the spare bottle of lubricant becomes the most selfish being when confronted with them. Out on a run, they shove these items in the deepest part of their bags and refuse to give them up upon returning. Negan doesn't blame them. Negan _is_ one of them, and Rick isn't surprised one bit to find a half-empty bottle of lubricant tucked into the corner of the drawer. Negan catches the contagious grin that crosses Rick's face, and when Rick slowly begins to frown, Negan finds himself at the bidding of that, as well. He rises into sitting, his hands placed behind him, and carefully watches Rick as Rick lifts that damned shard of glass out of the drawer. He holds it, just like he held it all those years ago. His grip isn't mean, though, not like it was. More of a brief ponder than a reminisce, Rick replaces the glass in the nightstand and pulls out the lubricant next. Rick says not a word. He shuts the drawer, plants himself beside Negan, and pops off the lid.

"Are you mad?" Negan asks, and is unsure why.

Rick says, "No." Then, "Are you?"

"I'm fucking horny."

Rick smiles. "Lay on your stomach for me, baby."

The kind of burn that stains the lungs when they're suffocating, that shocks Negan. He's red all over at that term of endearment. Rick laughs at him, but his laugh is quiet, more of a glorified exhale than an actual laugh. He presses his hand to the middle of Negan's back after Negan rolls onto his stomach and says, "I'll be careful."

"I want you to fucking give it to me."

Rick pats Negan's ass. "I'll be careful."

And Rick is careful. He's as careful as possible. When it comes to what comes after, as he's applying the lubricant to his cock, he's careful, too. He talks to Negan throughout it, tells him what he's going to do and what he's thinking while he's doing it. Negan is never not a shade of pink during this. Rick's voice is a machine, that comfortable purr nestling in Negan's eardrums every time he opens his mouth to speak.

"I'm going to add another finger," he would say, and then slowly slide it inside. "You're so tight, baby. I'm gonna take care of you."

Negan couldn't control himself. He moaned too much and tried to muffle it with a handful of bed covers. Rick pulled them all away. He wanted to hear, so Negan let him hear.

He's quiet as Rick coats his cock with the lubricant, pushing himself onto his side, and then his back. Negan retracts what he said before. It's okay. It's okay. He has a pillow tilting his hips up, and Rick's staring at him with his blue eyes now made dark with arousal, and Negan licks his lips and says, "Come 'ere and fuck Daddy."

Rick is on him, between Negan's legs, his cock heavy and slick and pressing against Negan's thigh with his hand on Negan's throat. Rick lunged. He lunged on Negan, the mattress giving and taking a small reverb, Negan bouncing with it. He looks up at Rick with nothing but affection in his eyes because he can feel the pressure Rick's exerting on his throat, and it's nothing frightening. His goal isn't to choke. It's to placate. It's to hold Negan in place and feel his vocal cords vibrate as he's slowly stretched from Rick pressing inside him.

At Negan groaning, Rick kisses Negan's forehead. "You think _you're_ Daddy? Who calls you that?" Rick kisses Negan's brow. " _No one_. No, _I'm_ Daddy, and… and _you're_ Papa." Rick removes his hand from Negan's throat in favor of his arm, his bicep, something hard. He burrows his face into Negan's neck and sucks whatever his lips touch.

"I think I need to put on a few more pounds to be called that."

"You're perfect," Rick says, rocking his hips and smiling at Negan's hands grabbing at his back. It's difficult, but Negan manages to roll them over without disconnecting completely. Rick rests now, fixing the pillow behind his head, an absent palm to Negan's thigh. Negan straddles Rick's hips, an absent palm of his own on top of Rick's hand on his thigh.

Rick's pink, and Negan loves it. "Am I perfect here, too, Rick? Goddamnit, your fucking dick inside me feels so fucking good."

Rick closes his eyes, smiling, smiling, smiling. He has a beautiful smile.

Negan kisses Rick, and Rick kisses Negan.

"Fuck me, Rick," Negan says, a hand on each side of Rick's head.

Rick grabs his hips.

Negan places a kiss to Rick's cheek.

Rick digs in his nails.

"Fuck me like you've been dying to for _years_."

"Negan," Rick says, and that's it. Maybe it's a warning. Maybe it's nothing at all. He groans out Negan's name, slings an arm around Negan's neck, and presses his feet into the mattress as leverage to buck his hips up into Negan. Over and over, over and over, Negan burns faintly wherever Rick touches him. Lips, hands, the briefest stroke of fingertips, they all contribute to the heat spreading to every inch of his body. With heat comes color, and soon, Negan's a shade of pink Rick is very familiar with himself. Rick's adapting to the same hue as if he were a chameleon.

He's mouthing at the ink on Negan's chest when he comes. He's inside Negan when it happens, deep, _in there_ , and Negan comes all over Rick's stomach at that sensation. They finish with a grunt, with pathetic gasps, with each of them grasping hands and trying not to spill everything coagulating in their hearts.

Negan regains control of his body first. He allows himself to fall next to Rick, Rick's semen already starting to take residence between Negan's legs. As Negan's panting and seeing stars in the ceiling above, Rick slowly stretches out his legs, wincing all the while. He dips his fingers into the mess Negan made on his stomach and has a taste. Negan watches him, still struggling to breathe like he finished a marathon. "Yeah?" he goes, and Rick lazily turns his head to the side and kisses Negan's shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Those sunflowers I said Judy and I planted," Negan says, Rick returning to scooping up the spunk on his stomach and licking it away, "they were for you."

Rick looks at him.

"And the peonies, too, the ones Judy let slip, those were for you. We were going to plant tulips next—yellow ones, like the ones you colored in that fucking book." Negan shakes his head, blinking, blinking the tears from existence.

Rick takes his hand and laces their fingers together.

"I didn't want to plant fucking roses," Negan admits, looking to the ceiling and seeing no more stars.

And quietly, Negan asks again, "Are you mad?"

"No," Rick says, and kisses Negan's hand in his. "Are you?"

Negan presses his lips together, a defiant silence that does no good to remain silent.

Rick just stares at him. He says, "Well, I'm glad you didn't plant those tulips. Judith and I already did. I mean, _I_ did. She sat back and watched me with this weird look on her face." Rick squeezes Negan's hand. "So, she didn't tell you?"

"That girl didn't tell me a damn thing."

Another kiss to Negan's hand, another kiss to Negan's shoulder, Rick smiles during this and after—always after. He gazes at Negan and tells him, "Go to sleep for me."

Negan tugs the case from a pillow, using it to clean himself and Rick where he needs it. It goes to the floor with the rest of the dirty laundry.

Rick states, "You'd be a nightmare to live with," and Negan doesn't disagree. He just smiles. He smiles at Rick, and he smiles into Rick's hair when Rick encompasses him in a hug.

"You love it," Negan breathes into those curls.

"I love you," Rick acquiesces.

Ruffling Rick's curls and sighing with a chortle, Negan whispers, "Oh, _Rick_ , tell me that again like _you mean it_."

But Rick repeats it in the same tone—and then bites Negan's collarbone and whispers, "I fucking love you, asshole. Now, please, go to sleep."

So, Negan does.

* * *

Rick sleeps with his fists curled into the blankets and a persistent look of uneasiness plaguing his face. To be fair, this is the first time Negan's looked at the man this up close while he's sleeping. On those nights where Rick sat over watch of him in his jail cell, he kept to the shadows. Negan tried looking. He got on his knees and pressed his face to those metal bars, but he saw nothing except for that glint of Rick's watch from where he had his arms crossed over his chest.

Negan doesn't take this for granted now, not when Rick's here for his visual consumption.

It's midday, evening—Negan can't know for certain. The rain's still coming down, the sun's attempts at emerging futile. It shines here and there, but it will stay a visitor and not a resident for the remainder of the day. Negan thinks that's okay.

He leaves the bed and picks up the room, Rick's clothes in one pile and his own in another. Anything else goes in a third, more sparse pile. When Rick wakes, he'll continue to call Negan a nightmare, but at least it's better than how it was when they went to sleep.

Rick begins to snore. Negan grabs clean clothes and slips into the bathroom.

Negan was surprised to find Alexandria had running water upon his visit with Carl. The Sanctuary wasn't as blessed in that regard. They were lucky if they had enough to take a shower that day—and it was always cold. He almost wept at the warmth that soaked him when he took a shower at Alexandria for the first time. He stayed in there for almost an hour. Rick was sat outside the room here, too, ever the stubborn guard over his prisoner. "I thought you did something in there," he said, a hand to Negan's back as he guided Negan to his cell.

"Like what?" Negan asked, wiggling his eyebrows and smiling with all his teeth. He wanted Rick to say something obscene. Rick didn't give in. Rick just shook his head. Embarrassingly enough, it took Negan a while to realize Rick wasn't concerned about if Negan was rubbing one out. No, it was something that might require much more cleanup and assistance from someone who wasn't incapacitated.

Relieving to admit, Negan's never seriously considered killing himself. He can't deny the down moments were some of the worst points of his life, and he's turned to that thought once or twice or somewhere close to a hundred times, but it was never something he thought would overwhelm him so he wanted to do nothing but.

Rick didn't want Negan to kill himself because that would have been the same as Rick killing him under that tree. He needed Negan alive to make his stupid-ass point about them going back to how things were before the world ended. Negan wasn't going to be part of it in the way he wanted. Negan was going to be a symbol, stripped of his agency as long as he stayed in that cell.

He made it out. The world was better. He needed to stop dwelling on the past.

Warm water still makes him shiver. Even after all this time, he spends too much time in the shower. Rick trusts him to some degree, and besides, Rick is asleep, snoring through the door and dreaming dreams Negan may never have the privilege of knowing. He thinks he's okay with that.

Dressed in a gray t-shirt and jeans, Negan stands in front of the sink and the foggy medicine cabinet. Narrowed eyes and Rick's snoring in his ear, Negan gauges his reflection; and so, before he returns to the bedroom, he shaves the beard from his face.

It isn't like with Rick, where he approached Negan in the garden with most of the length from his beard gone with absolutely no warning. Negan looked up at him, the sun shining behind his head, and declared, "Shit, Rick, you fucking shaved! You look like a Goddamn baby!"

Giving Negan that side-eye look Negan lives for, Rick ran his fingers along the stubble on his cheeks and firmly said, "I didn't shave. I _trimmed_ it."

Rick said, "All that white, it made me sick to look at every morning. I didn't like it. I still don't. I don't think white in a beard looks good. Gray, sure, but white…?"

Rick said, "Sorry," to Negan. He went on to say, "Your beard's better than mine," and while that wasn't the first time Negan's heart stopped around Rick, it felt like it was all the same.

When Negan brings the edge of the straight razor against his chin, it becomes almost soothing to see what was hidden beneath the gray and white. Negan didn't necessarily hate his beard. It grew on him after years of imprisonment, where he wasn't allowed even so much as a haircut. He shaved that all off first chance he had, and Rick gave him that funny look again once he saw him. This time, the look was softer. Negan tried not to dig that deep into the meaning behind that.

He kept the beard. He liked how it made him unruly. He liked how it reminded him of the version of Rick he saw on that videotape. Maybe Negan tricked himself into believing nobody would mess with him if he had a dead animal attached to his face.

Rick stayed around, though. Rick stayed.

But Rick was Rick.

Rick's calling for Negan.

Negan places the razor in a high, faraway place, wipes the excess from his face with a towel, and goes into the bedroom.

Sat up, on the edge of the bed, and wearing one of Negan's flannels, Rick turns to stare at Negan and promptly says, "Who are you?"

Taking a seat next to Rick, criss-cross applesauce, his fingers pinching the loose fabric bunching around Rick's elbow, Negan pulls Rick into him. Their foreheads bump together a little harder than he intended, but once he feels Rick's lips slide onto his in a big smile and a wet kiss, Negan doesn't feel quite so guilty anymore.

"I'm the devil," Negan says, breathless.

Rick kisses Negan's chin. He lingers there for a handful of seconds, for a minute. He whispers, "I woke up and thought you left me. I know this is your place, but… but I still thought you left."

Negan throws his arms around Rick's neck, casual and smiling and rubbing the tip of his nose against the tip of Rick's nose. "I'm not fucking leaving you. You got me into bed, Rick, and while that's not a hard feat, I'm gonna fucking stick to you like a nasty case of crabs." Negan nips at Rick's bottom lip.

"Shaving doesn't get rid of crabs," Rick says, wrapping his fingers around Negan's chin and tilting Negan's head up. Rick kisses Negan's jaw, the spot below his ear, and then down his neck. One kiss right after the other, Rick holds Negan's waist and quietly adds, "Didn't they teach you that in school?"

"If they did, I don't remember. It's been too damn long."

Rick smirks. "Who's the old man now?"

Negan runs his fingers into Rick's hair. He tugs. "You're calling the fucking kettle black, Rick." He tugs again, Rick's eyes closing and his teeth digging into his cheek. "You look hot in flannel," Negan says, and presses a kiss to Rick's cheek. He's back to shivering, but this time it's due to Rick snaking his arms around his waist completely and not the heat from the shower. Rick nudges Negan down, until they're lying side by side, chest to chest, and Rick doing his damndest to not smile along with Negan. Negan smiles like a great white, and his hands coax and coax until Rick's there, too. He's rubbing Rick's earlobes, fingertips curving to rub behind his ears and at his hairline. Negan also feels the roots, touching shampoo residue and the odd pimple. His smile never wavers. He's in awe.

And Rick's rolling his eyes and finally breaking into that smile. "You're obnoxious. What do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

If Negan were to tell Rick he wanted to lie here until morning came, he thinks Rick would agree. They'd undress each other and kiss and fuck as if they had been doing this for years.

They can't do that. Rick doesn't want to say anything else.

Negan suggests, "How 'bout we grab that cane of yours, check on your kids, and then you can show me where you fucking planted those tulips?"

Rick's smile never falters. "Okay."

* * *

Carl passes them as they're walking up the porch steps. He says, "Nice shirt, Dad," because Rick's still wearing one of Negan's flannel shirts.

Carl says, "Looks good on you," and means it.

"Just the shirt?" Rick asks.

"That," Carl says, "and maybe something else. I was about to look for you guys."

"You're bringing a tear to my eye, kid." Negan claps a hand on Carl's shoulder, offering a squeeze before Carl descends the stairs and moves farther away from them. "Your sister inside?"

The little munchkin races through the front door at Negan's voice and the dragging walk of her father. "Daddy!" she shouts, and Rick doesn't disappoint by lifting and placing her on his hip. She's getting a little too big for this swift motion, but Rick hangs in there, anything for his daughter.

"I saw you leave this morning," she says, and digs her pointer finger into Rick's chest in an accusatory fashion. "Carl had to fix me breakfast." She speaks of Carl's cooking as if she doesn't think highly of it, and this causes Negan to glance toward Carl, standing in the pathway toward the house. He stands with a smile he doesn't try to hide.

"I'm sorry, Judy," Rick starts, "but I wanted to have breakfast with Negan." He begins walking, feet dragging, leading them inside.

"We all could have gone to Negan's house and have breakfast," she protests.

"Sometimes… two adults want to have a meal just the two of them."

Judith's eyes widen, and her lips press together in a perfect circle to brighten the color on Rick's cheeks. She isn't as naïve as he may believe. She's as quick as a whip. Carl, too, even with his blind spots, Negan finds him just as, if not faster, than he leads on. After Rick disappears inside, he says, "So, you don't need my help anymore?"

Hopping down the steps, his leg screaming only a tad, Negan says, "Depends on if you found anything already. This morning could've just been a morning."

Carl shakes his head. "I doubt it. Did you see the way he looks at you? Did you _ever_ see the way he looked at you?"

Negan turns back to the house.

"I was out on a run and found some seeds in this shed behind someone's apartment. I don't know if they were properly stored or taken care of or if their label is even correct, but I found some."

"Details, kid, details." Negan snaps. "What are they? That's crucial."

Instead of telling Negan himself, Carl opts for showing him. From his back pocket, Carl passes over the small brown paper bag with someone's handwriting scribbled across as a makeshift label. It's not professional by any means, and the words Negan reads could be useless when deciphering the contents inside the bag. This could be recycled. This could be anything. But he's reading, and he feels good. A smile spreads along his face, and he feels really good.

"Do you know what this fucking means, kid? Or did you just grab them just to grab them?" Negan narrows his eyes.

"As long as you don't have a, a… a picture of yourself hidden away in that house of yours turning uglier every day, then I don't care." At Negan's arching eyebrow, Carl frowns and mumbles, "Enid made me read it."

Moving along, Negan asks, "Care about what?" as he slides the pack of seeds into his pocket.

"You and my dad." Carl shrugs. "I always tried to see the good in the worst of people… and you were pretty much the worst. I saw it, though. I saw the _potential_ for it. My dad didn't see it until much later, but he saw it. You seem different now."

"It's because I got laid for the first time in years."

Rolling his eye and deciding to walk away rather than spend any longer with Negan, Carl says, "Why did you have to ruin the moment?"

Negan laughs.

When the front door finally opens, Judith is the line leader, marching proudly. Rick follows, gripping his cane.

Judith's hand slithers into Negan's. "So, my dad told you about the tulips, huh?"

"Don't you worry, darling," Negan tells her. "I have something better."

"I definitely didn't hear that," Rick says.

"Cool!" To Judith, Negan smiles sweetly and declares, "Lead the way, angel."

She embodies this with pride.

* * *

And now Rick's hand is in Negan's hand, too, and Negan thinks he might be the luckiest guy in the world. He's in front of the spot where Rick planted the tulips, soil a little disturbed and just right, and he's smiling and enjoying the sun on the back of his neck.

Rick says, "I can move them if they're too close to the ones you planted for me."

"Oh, Rick, despite how much I would _love_ to have you on your knees, seeing you struggle to pick yourself up would hurt me more than it'd hurt you."

While the innuendo falls on Judith's innocent ears, she squeezes Negan's hand at the latter part of his statement. That's familiar to her, as it should as a child.

"Shut up," Rick sighs, squeezing Negan's hand, too.

"We need to go inside soon." Judith lifts a hand to point at the clouds above, dark and demanding. The wandering sprinkle has dripped onto Negan's head, his shoulders, but the way things are going, he doesn't see a downpour occurring until he's safely inside with Rick as close as possible. "We're going to get colds," Judith continues, her gaze going down to her shoes, her shorts. She mumbles, "I didn't wear a jacket."

Negan swoops her up into his arms, the move one that surprises all parties involved. He's still sore from yesterday, and what he and Rick got into this morning did nothing but deepen those aches in his muscles. He can't complain. He doesn't wince. He holds Judith on his hip, smiling as she smiles, and Rick's hand now presses delicately into the small of his back. Rick rubs. Negan slips into heaven.

"We'll go," Negan says. "It'll be a while before the flowers bloom anyway."

Judith pokes Negan in the chin. Her brow furrows, a question she won't ask on the tip of her tongue. Negan already knows. He just continues to smile.

No one is the leader. Negan and Rick walk side by side, Rick with his cane and his hand on Negan's back and Negan with Judith in his arms.

* * *

They're in bed again—Rick's bed this time. It's raining, the kids are asleep, Rick's kissing Negan, and Negan's thumbs are memorizing the way Rick's skull feels underneath the skin. "You know I don't care if your flowers get all… intermingled with mine, right? I like them better that way."

"I wanted to ask," Rick says, regardless of Negan's feelings on the matter, "but I didn't want to spoil the surprise."

"Did you _just_ plant those tulips, Rick?" Grabby hands unable to let go, Negan pins Rick to the bed by his wrists. He hovers, pushes in close to kiss the tip of Rick's nose, and then lower and lower and lower. "Or did you plant me something else?" Negan asks this as he tilts his head and cocks an eyebrow, his lips dancing along the dip of Rick's sternum over his shirt.

Rick covers Negan's eyes with tentative hands and a quiet smile. "Were you expecting something else?"

Negan has those seeds in the back pocket of his pants somewhere on Rick's bedroom floor. He shrugs.

Snorting, Rick bends his knee and sends it into Negan's side. "You're an idiot. I planted you some roses, too."

This is simple. This would always be simple, but Rick's right. Negan's an idiot. He sits in front of Rick, and Rick sits up. Elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, Rick stares at Negan, and with his legs crossed and his own hands reaching up to push Rick's elbows away so he can rub Rick's knees, Negan stares at Rick. "Alexandria's going to have its own fucking _love garden_ thanks to you, Ricky boy."

Rick watches Negan's fingers massage the knots from existence. "When we first met, you said you weren't growing a garden."

When they first met—Negan thinks of it less and less often as time goes by. It hurts. It won't stop hurting. He applies more pressure to Rick's knees. For a brief moment, he wants this to hurt, too. "This is a _different_ garden, Rick. This is a _love_ garden. Keep up."

Rick rolls his eyes.

Hanging his head and easing his hands from Rick's body, Negan says, "That reminds me." He pushes his shoulders back, confidence renewed. "Can I plant something in your front yard?"

"What is it?" Rick cups Negan's face. He touches Negan's cheeks, his fingers dragging along Negan's jawline and tapping Negan's chin.

Negan's response is to kiss Rick. Rick doesn't bother asking, not when he has Negan's mouth opening against his.

* * *

Judith helps Negan. Carl sits on the front porch steps. Nothing has changed.

Rick's watching from the porch railing, leaning over it and propping up his head with his hands. The faintest smile lingers. He still doesn't ask.

* * *

When the flowers bloom, they do so beautifully.

While Judith continues to bear the weight of the basket of tomatoes on the journey home, Negan uses his own strength to carry a small pot of peonies. "We can switch," Negan says, and Judith shakes her head, as stubborn as ever.

"I can do this!"

At the kitchen table, Judith's array of crayons and coloring books spread around him like a master plan, Rick greets them coming inside. Leg elevated on a chair, he's all smiles, even with Negan smacking a big kiss on the top of his head. "Is that what we're having for supper?" he asks, knowing full well what day it is and what today means. He has the kitchen counters ready for Negan to work.

"If you want to eat the flowers, more power to you." Negan places them at the center of the table, next to the wilting crane from months' past.

"They're beautiful," Rick says.

"Ideal for weddings," Negan comments, and tries not to make eye contact, but to no avail. He raises his head, fingers still caught on the peonies' leaves. He raises his head and stares at Rick, and Rick, he stares right back with that smile and shakes his head—like father, like daughter.

Carl enters the room, naturally gravitating to the counter. "I'll boil the water."

* * *

The next morning, as they wait for Judith to finish brushing her teeth to go on their morning walk to Alexandria's garden, Rick crouches next to the cluster of green carnations next to the porch steps. Bright as the sun steadily rising, Rick's knuckles turn white from using his cane for leverage into standing again. His hands on Rick's waist to help him, Negan waits for Rick to say something. Negan can feel his heart drop into his stomach and dissolve in the acid. He keeps a hand on the space between Rick's shoulder blades, hoping Rick can't tell how much his palm is sweating.

Rick points at the flower patch. He says, "Should've just planted these right off the bat. Your intentions would have been obvious then."

Negan slowly blinks. "So, uh, you're telling me you know what they stand for?"

Shrugging like this is nothing, like this isn't something Negan spent countless nights agonizing over, like this should be common knowledge, Rick states simply, "Of course I do; I like men."

"Sometimes, Rick," Negan grumbles, wrapping both arms around Rick's neck and bending down to press a kiss to Rick's temple, "you make me wish you'd let me bleed out under that tree."

Rick places a quick kiss on Negan's forearm. "I love you, too, Negan."


End file.
